Hegoa Records / UK / 2021
"Cosmic proto-blues" Atanas Akerstra, is the solo project of Rogelio Astigarraga.
Roge has been a core member of the ever changing and hugely influential experimental/industrial rock band Akauzazte, from Azkoitia, for more than over three decades now. Located in between mountains and within the Urola river valley at the heart of the Basque Country, Azkoitia has an old slaughterhouse that was turned around 1996 into a self-managed building used in equal parts as an art/performance space, theatre, cinema, live music venue or recording studio. Environment and heritage are essential to understand Roge and Akauzazte's musical output as the journalist Antton Iturbe suggests:
"Isolated and at the same time deeply rooted to their land, they amplify their heartbeats in order to dance to the beats produced by empty bones and rusty hammers. The waste materials of the old slaughterhouse are now musical instruments. […] They are open to surprise and attentive to their inner voice in order to act like mediums of a collective trance.”
(Words translated by dear friends/bloggers/label Urpa I Musell)
Urpa I Musell carry on adding "The aforementioned definition of Akauzazte may also, from a slightly different scope, apply to Atanas Arkestra. In both cases, it’s all about the transmutation of, on the one side, very primary elements and feelings into, on the other side, deep listener’s enlightenment; and in the middle of this transformation process there’s the music acting as the medium. This binomial phenomenon is always present in the music of Atanas Arkestra in different forms: sky and roots, mud and heaven, up and down, roughness and refinement…"
(Urpa I Musell, 2017, www.urpaimusell.com/atanas-akerstra-oro/)
Roge released Vol.1 back in 2006. It compiles music composed during a period of fifteen years (ca. 1991 – 2016). It was published by dear friend Iñigo Ugarteburu on his own imprint Talo Recordings on handmade cd and a very limited run of 125 LPs housed in handmade covers made by himself alongside Iñigo. Highly sought after, is finally available again in another small run of 125 copies housed in wraparound screen printed sleeves with the original artwork.
Each copy Includes a screen printed A3 poster on kraft paper + double sided insert/artwork.